


it was always me and you

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Maybe a slow burn?, Single Parent AU, as in 'it's been ten years Fitz', does it count as a kidfic if it's a single parent au?, happy birthday Olesya!, might as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-06-01 00:10:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15130793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: "There had always been something about Fitz’s fiancée that she had never really admired, something off about the way she smiled with too much teeth and how she rarely blinked."When Fitz’s fiancée runs off in the middle of the night leaving Fitz and their 4 year old daughter behind, Jemma is there immediately because she’s his best-friend and she’s been there through it all.But as Fitz navigates single parenthood with Jemma every step on the way, maybe it’s something different than being a best-friend. Maybe it’s something more.A single parent AU with a little bit of a difference. A birthday present for the wonderful Olesya!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amazingjemma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazingjemma/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLESYA! I was the random anon who asked you about the fic prompts and things! I hope this is okay, and I hope you are having such a wonderful day because you deserve it! I am so happy to call you my friend <3
> 
> So right now, currently, it's Sunday 1st July and because I go away on holiday tomorrow I'm hoping this scheduling thing will work! 
> 
> It was originally meant to be a one-shot but then the idea grew and grew in my brain and now it's going to be a multi-chapter! I'm going to guess 4, for just now, but it could go up or down, I'm not too sure yet :)
> 
> Also, I couldn't use the name 'Sarah' because she's a separate child and I would feel bad, but I hope you like Orla, also!
> 
> Title is from 'Mess is Mine' by Vance Joy because I love it so.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this (and I hope the posting date thingy works also)!

When the phone rings at 5:30 in the morning, Jemma rolls over to the bedside cabinet and answers with a barely audible ‘hello’, hoping that it’s not some dreadfully important phone call. She’s thinking it’s maybe her boss, maybe her parents. She’s thinking that she still had half an hour until the alarm went off, and that there’s hair in her mouth and a crick in her neck.

She’s definitely not thinking of what it is.

“Jemma – oh, thank God, Jemma, I – I don’t know what to do.”

It’s Fitz and his voice is high with panic and immediately she sits up in her bed and swipes the hair out of her face.

“Fitz, what’s going on?”

“She’s gone. I woke up early this morning and she’s just… she’s just gone. Packed up her things, left a note on the kitchen table… didn’t even leave a note for both of us and I – I don’t know what to do.”

She can picture him shakily running his hands through his hair whilst speaking to her, pacing about his house. Her heart begins to hammer in her chest, a sick feeling spreading through her. She’s hoping against hope she’s wrong but she can’t think how she could be.

“Fitz, please don’t tell me you’re talking about-”

“Annie, yeah,” he chokes out. “She’s gone.”

There had always been something about Fitz’s fiancé that she had never really admired, something off about the way she smiled with too much teeth and how she rarely blinked. Actually, in different circumstances and if it had been five years ago, she’d be quite glad of this outcome.

However, it isn’t five years ago and she was Fitz’s fiancé and also the mother of his child which is why she keeps the list of insults that have suddenly come into her head in her head, and instead asks;

“What about Orla?”

“She’s fine, still asleep. When I saw the note I thought…” He doesn’t finish but Jemma knows what he means, knows what he thought and she doesn’t voice that, in those first few moments, she thought it too.

“How do I tell her that her mum didn’t even think enough of her to say goodbye?”

She doesn’t have an answer and instead says, “Give me half an hour, and I’ll be right there.”

A laugh that isn’t really a laugh at all. “It’s half five in the morning.”

“Yes, it is,” Jemma agrees, swinging her legs out of bed and making her way to the bathroom. “And you need me.”

Fitz doesn’t deny it. “You don’t have to come, Jemma.”

“Yes, I do,” she says firmly, pulling out her toothbrush and squeezing on some toothpaste. “I am going to come over and I am going to help you get Orla off to school and then I’ll help you sort everything out. We’ll figure it out, together.”

“Together,” he whispers, and it’s so quiet that Jemma thinks maybe she wasn’t meant to hear it. Then; “I’ll see you in half an hour. Thank you.”

“Of course,” she replies, and hangs up.

She brushes her teeth vigorously, spitting into the sink and when she washes it away she thinks of Annie.

-x-

Luckily, this time of the morning makes it easy for Jemma to navigate the streets of Glasgow, as she is early for the rush hour, even by only a five minutes, really.  She rarely drives in the city, preferring to take the Subway to the university where she works, and it shows, too. The friend in her knows that she shouldn’t be worrying about people seeing her driving, but the perfectionist in her is glad that it’s too early for anybody to be about to truly take notice.

During the drive Jemma thinks of the first time she met Annie. It had been a party at someone’s flat in their final year of university, one of those ridiculous things that one went to in an attempt to be sociable that never usually lasted long. Her and Fitz had been quite a bit drunker than they would usually because it was January and they were trying to save on their heating bill. Annie had been wearing a silvery dress and with her blonde hair and piercing blue eyes and in a drunken haze Jemma’s only thought was that she might have been an angel. It hadn’t been long before she’d introduced herself to Fitz and before she knew it, they were dating.

There had always been arguments; slamming doors and frequent yelling and texts that made Jemma’s blood boil with their audacity. But time had flown and they had all grown up and while Jemma could never say she had really grown to love the woman, she had made Fitz happy and given her the adorable bundle of joy who she called a niece and so she never said a word against her.

But at this time of the morning and while she’s alone in her car, she allows herself to say all sorts of things against this monster of a woman who had left her fiancé and her daughter in the middle of the night with only a note as a comfort. When she’s done, she feels a little bit lighter, and a little bit more ready to help Fitz without accidentally adding in some side notes.

Fitz opens the door before she’s even rung the doorbell. “Jemma,” he breathes, taking a gulp like she’s the breath of air he needs because it feels as though he’s been drowning for hours. He pulls her in for a fierce hug, and Jemma feels the desperation all the way through to his fingertips.

“Come on,” she tells him gently, once he lets go. “Let’s go inside and have some breakfast.”

“Breakfast,” he nods, “Right. Yeah. Important meal of the day and all that.” And he follows her to his own kitchen like a lost child.

She sits him down at the kitchen table and busies herself making breakfast, trying as hard as anything to forget the burn his shell-shocked gaze makes her feel. Despite her usual mantra of too much sugar being bad for everybody, two sugars go into his tea and both butter and jam go onto his toast. He accepts the plate and mug she slides across the table with a sad smile and she grips her own cup a little too hard that it burns her hand.

There are several minutes of them both drinking and chewing in silence. When his toast is done, Fitz pushes the plate away and brings his elbows on the table, dropping his head in his hands.

“Everything was fine last night.” The disbelief in his voice breaks Jemma’s heart. “I thought we had a good night. It was Orla’s parents’ evening and it was amazing.” The pride in his voice makes her smile. “We went out for dinner. Well-” he looks up at Jemma with a sheepish grin. “We went to McDonald’s.”

She nods solemnly, with not even a hint of sarcasm. “Of course. The perfect reward to a good parents’ evening.”

“We watched a film… I went to bed a bit early ‘cause I knew I had to be up early this morning for work. She stayed up… I don’t know if she even came to bed.” He drops his eyes to the table but Jemma still sees the tears, hears them in his voice. “Guess she didn’t. I think that might be worse if she did.”

“And then?” Jemma gently coaxes, not wanting to hear but knowing she must have the complete story.

“And then…” Fitz blows out a breath. “Then I wake up, look over to make sure the alarm hasn’t woken her up and when she wasn’t there I don’t know I suppose I just thought she was already up. I came downstairs and then I saw it.”

“The note?”

“The note.”

“What did it say?” She asks, but Fitz only looks at her and shakes his head while biting his lip and she says nothing else, knowing that this hurt is just for him right now. Jemma reaches over and takes his hands in hers. He squeezes back gratefully.

“She took all of her stuff,” he whispers, pained. “All of her clothes, her jewellery, makeup. Everything important to her. Except…”

“Except her daughter,” Jemma finishes, unable to hide the resentment in her voice.

“Not that I would have wanted her to, I mean I don’t even want to think… but I thought she _loved_ her, at least. Thought she cared about her more than she obviously does.”

And Jemma has to admit that even though Annie ever sat right with her, she did at least think she cared about her daughter, too.

Having nothing kind to say right now, Jemma looks around and says, “Where is Orla anyway? Shouldn’t she be up for school?”

Fitz takes a look at his watch and shakes his head. “Nah, she doesn’t get up until seven. Its only half six.”

How can it be so early, Jemma thinks, when it feels like the day has already lasted a lifetime.

They don’t talk about Annie for the next thirty minutes. They speak about their respective work projects, Orla’s wonderful parents’ evening last night, Jemma’s boyfriend meeting her parents the coming Friday. They even manage to laugh together over some ancient joke from years ago and Jemma has faith that her best-friend will get through this.

“Daddy?” A little voice says from the kitchen door, and they both look over to see Fitz’s daughter standing there, clutching her stuffed toy monkey and rubbing her eyes.

“Hey, Orla,” Fitz says, but his voice sounds far rom casual. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Fine,” Orla says suspiciously. “Where’s mummy?”

Fitz doesn’t even attempt to answer and deflects the question entirely. “Look who came to visit us: Auntie Jemma!”

Jemma watches as the girl’s face lights up and she runs towards her, throwing her arms around her neck. She doesn’t even question the time, why her aunt is here and her mother is absent. Instead she just begins to chat rapidly about anything and everything in her life, her words tripping over themselves in excitement.

Fitz gets up to prepare her breakfast, and Orla, without missing a beat, takes the seat he left and continues filling in her auntie on all that is happened in her life in the three days since she last saw her.

“And I even got to see a _real_ giraffe!” Orla says excitedly, mouth hanging open in a long- lasting astonishment as she describes her school trip to the zoo.

“Wow, a real one? That is most impressive.” Jemma leans in, almost conspirationally. “Did you know that giraffes are the tallest mammals in the _world_?”

Orla nods with a vivacity that only a four year old can muster. “Uh huh, and they only have to drink every few _days._ ”

Jemma smiles and shakes her head as if she didn’t know. “Really? That’s amazing!”

“I like giraffes,” Orla hums, and rubs her eyes. “Mummy says she’ll take me to see the giraffes again in the summer holidays when she’s not working.”

Floundering, Jemma looks to Fitz who chooses at that moment to swoop in with a bowl of cornflakes with some chopped banana on the top. “Here you go,” he says, his tone too false.

Orla’s face lights up. “Banana!” She turns to Fitz and grins. “Thank you, daddy.”

“No problem.” He smiles back and kisses her on top of her hair but when she turns back to her cereal, Jemma spies him scrubbing his hand down his face and looking at his daughter as though he’s just completely and utterly lost.

When Orla goes to get her clothes on for school, Fitz practically falls into the chair and interlocks his fingers behind his neck, before resting them on the table, his chin tucked in and his eyes on his lap.

“I don’t even know how I’m going to tell her,” he says from within his cocoon. He looks up at Jemma, eyes wide with despair. “I mean how do you even tell a kid that? She thinks her mum loves her.”

“Now, Fitz,” Jemma says, anxious to keep Fitz semi-calm until Orla leaves for school. As much as she wants him to let it all out, she knows he has to hang on just this little bit longer, and let his daughter have that little bit of normalcy even if only for a few more hours. “You don’t know what Annie might have been thinking.”

“Oh come off it, Jemma,” Fitz rolls his eyes to her. “If you love someone you don’t just leave them in the middle of the night with only a bloody note for them to find in the morning.”

Jemma has nothing to say to that, or nothing that would keep the situation stable anyway.

“I’m going to phone off work today,” she decides. Fitz looks at her as if she’s crazy. True, for the past few weeks she has only complained to him about how hard work is, how tight deadlines are, how her bosses have been exchanging terse looks across the lab as the time for submitting the grant draws closer and closer. She shouldn’t really be requesting a day off but this is her best-friend and his daughter whose lives have been irrevocably changed. There are other jobs and other grants but there is only one Fitz, only one Orla and they need her more than her job does.

“Don’t do that.” Fitz shakes his head. “It’s not fair. I’ll be fine.”

“You might be,” she concedes. “But I won’t. All day long I’ll only be thinking about this and I won’t get anything productive done so I might as well not be there.”

“Jemma…”

“Fitz, I have made up my mind and you won’t be changing it for me,” she tells him firmly. “Today they will just have to survive without me.”

“I don’t know how anyone could survive without you,” he mutters, before throwing her a grateful look. “Seriously, though, thanks. I owe you.”

“Nonsense. You’re my best-friend. You never owe me anything.”

-x-

Fitz decides to phone in sick to work, also, to Jemma’s relief. She would never make the decision for him, never tell him how to deal with this because she knows fine well how work could be a solace, how you can bury yourself in it and make everything go away that you don’t want to deal with right now. She doesn’t want to take that comfort away from him, but she knows that he can’t bury himself in his work. Not while he has his daughter to think about.

She really needs to give Fitz more credit, because after he’s done speaking to his manager he turns to her and explains, “I couldn’t go to work today. Would probably get myself lost in it.”

Jemma clears her throat. “Yes, most probably you would.”

“I just don’t even know…” He turns away from her, pressing his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. Jemma watches as his shoulders begin to shake up and down in an irregular rhythm that she suddenly finds matches the rhythm of her heart. “I just feel like such a _bloody idiot_.”

“You’re not an idiot, Fitz,” she attempts to soothe, standing away from him with her hands by her side.

“Really? Am I not?” Her turns back to face her, shrugging his shoulders and gesturing to nothing. “’Cause my fiancée, mother of my child, upped and left in the middle of the night and I _didn’t even see it coming!_ ”

He doubles over, suddenly breathless, hands on his thighs and tears in his eyes. Jemma is by his side in a second, one hand on his back, rubbing softly.

“And I’m too much of a bloody coward to even tell her.” Fitz inhales a shaky, wet breath. “I don’t think I can, Jemma. I don’t. I can’t.”

She pulls him into a hug then, letting his head fall into her shoulder. She staggers a little bit under the weight he rests on her, but she does not shift him, knowing that she will carry him forever if need me.

“We’ll figure it out,” she whispers. The only sign that he hears her is that he holds on a little bit tighter. “We’ll find a solution to this.”

“Together?” He mumbles.

She isn’t sure if it’s meant to be a question but he doesn’t sound sure so with absolute resolution she says, “Yes. Together.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first: a huge, massive THANK YOU to those that have commented/left kudos/read this! It means the world to me and I would just like you to know that I appreciate each and every one of you. You're amazing <3
> 
> Secondly, the chapter count has gone from 4 to 7 and that's because I *finally* did for this what I've never done before and planned out what's going to happen chapter by chapter so 7 should be the final chapter count! (or like 6 chapters and one epilogue if we're being precise precise but I'm just happy I have a plan, if I'm honest!)
> 
> Thirdly, I know I've already thanked you but seriously, I'm enjoying writing this so much and it means a lot that you're enjoying it to. So thank you for being wonderful human beings!

To start with, Jemma Anne Simmons does what she always does in apparent times of crisis: she prepares.

During the day she comforts Fitz, helps him figure out all of the things that need to be sorted most immediately like how to pay bills and how to afford all of the upcoming expenses that suddenly seem endless now that there’s only one party paying where it rightfully should be two. She lets him scream and thump his fist against pillows and doesn’t say a word, knowing that he deserves to let it all out, knowing that he should do it now so later on he can focus on other, more important things.

“Would you like me to help you tell Orla?” She offers gently, taking his hand in hers and rubbing her thumb softly over his knuckles in a familiar form of comfort that they both offer when the other his hurting.

It takes him a moment to respond, and she can see the thoughts flying through his head at an impossible speed. But finally he shakes his head. “No. Thanks, but I think this is something that’s just got to be me.”

And she understands. She does, because they are family and as much as it might feel like it, she is not, so she steps back into her place.

At night, after she’s left them eating dinner and laughing together, she makes her way back to her flat and although she wants to just flop into bed after this emotional hurricane of a day, she only allows herself a few minutes of respite before tying her hair up in a messy bun, opening her laptop, and preparing everything she can so there’s less for Fitz to do later.

For there is rather a lot to sort out, because Annie is herself right until the end and has done nothing through the proper channels (Jemma takes a deep breath and tries to forget about a resentment that grows greater at every turn). As Orla’s mother, and as she and Fitz are unmarried and were at the time of Orla’s birth, her parental rights and responsibilities far succeed Fitz’s. If Annie registered him on the birth certificate then things are fine, or if they signed an agreement by the courts, Jemma reads. If not, then legally Annie can come back and take her daughter and it won’t matter that she’s left her before.

And this, Jemma knows, would be the lowest blow, the truest devastation. For she knows that if Fitz has to sell the house, if he has to give up the car, if he has to move back in with his mother then he can handle it all, could bounce back from it. But if Annie were to just turn up and take his daughter from him then Jemma knows that it would destroy him and that there’s nothing she could do that would ever fix that.

She makes a note in the notebook she’s compiling all her information in and then shuts her laptop, arching her back and massaging her neck as she does so. Deciding that’s enough for tonight, she checks her phone, frowning as she sees there’s ten texts and five missed calls from her boyfriend.

Skipping the texts, she calls him back. He answers on the first ring.

“Jemma! Oh, thank God. What happened?”

“Jack?” She frowns, pinching the bridge of her nose in an attempt to ward of an oncoming headache. “What do you mean ‘what’s happened?’ Surely he cannot know about Annie, and if he doesn’t then she won’t tell him. It’s not her news. Another, horrifying thought dawns on her. “We didn’t have plans for tonight, did we?”

“No,” he dismisses. “I knew you’d be busy with your work, so I didn’t phone but then I got this text from Fitz earlier that said I should check on you.” Jack’s voice increases in it’s urgency, though Jemma can tell she’s trying hard not to let it show. “So what’s happened?”

Partly, her heart is warmed because it’s so very Fitz to be concerned for her when he has no reason to be. However, another, larger part (because she’s been awake since 5:30 and has had a tea of resentment brewing inside her all day) is annoyed because there is absolutely no need for him to be concerned. She is capable of taking care of her friend without needing to be taken care of, too.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” she tries to wave off, bringing the phone away from her ear to open up the messaging app. “You know how Fitz can be. Likes to worry and all that.”

“Still,” Jack insists, “he must have a reason to be worried. He’s not just going to text me that out of nowhere, is he?”

 _Ugh, Fitz_ Jemma thinks, and is about to text him asking what she should say when a message from him flashes up before she begins typing.

‘ _Sorry, but I was just worried about you. You can tell him, by the way.’_

A small smile appears on her face, but when she notices she immediately lets it go and summons up the courage to regale the story without adding any personal embellishments that might make it hard for her boyfriend to form an objective opinion.

When she is done, there is silence on the line.

“Jack?” She asks tentatively, drumming her fingers on the table. Still, silence. “Well you must have _something_ to say, surely.”

“What a cow.”

 _“Jack_!” She admonishes but does so through giggles.

“Well, I’m sorry – actually, I’m not. What kind of person does that? Just leaves their fiancé and daughter in the middle of the night with no explanation?”

Anxious to be fair, Jemma says, “We don’t know what might have been going on.”

“Yeah, you’re right. But I know Fitz and I know there is no way in hell that guy deserves that, not when all she had to do was ask for the world and he would have given it to her.”

Jemma thinks of all Fitz has done to make her happy and thinks she agrees.

“Anyway,” Jack continues, “I’ll let you get back to your work. As long as you’re alright though, yeah?”

“Yes.” Jemma suddenly sobers, looking at the notes she has collected on things she never thought she’d have to. “I’m alright.”

-x-

It’s just past ten, and Jemma’s settling into bed with her book and a cup of peppermint tea when her phone goes once more. Fitz’s name flashes up and a panic never experienced before grips her heart. She snatches up her phone so vigorously that she bangs her finger on the bedside cabinet.

“Fitz?” She answers, but there is only silence on the line. “Fitz? Are you there?”

“It’s me,” a small voice warbles out, and the grip panic has on her heart lessens only slightly.

“Orla. Are you alright?”

“No,” the girl says pitifully, her voice muffled as if she’s been crying. “Daddy told me mummy’s gone and she’s not… she’s not coming back.”

“Oh, darling,” Jemma breathes, aching to give her niece some comfort where there is none to be found.

“He – he told me it wasn’t my fault but I…” she breaks off, and Jemma hears her sniff, “but why would she just go?”

Well Jemma can think of a few choice reasons, but none are suitable for a child’s ears. “Sometimes,” she begins, carefully, “people do things and we don’t really know why they do them.”

There’s a panful silence and then: ‘Auntie Jemma,” and the voice is so quiet, so unsure, that Jemma thinks she can hear her own heart breaking, “do you think it was because I was bad?”

All the air _whooshes_ out of her lungs. “Oh, no, Orla, it wasn’t because of you. You aren’t bad, not even a little bit. You’re wonderful.”

“But I’m on daddy’s phone right now, and I didn’t ask.”

Jemma can picture Orla, tucked up in her animal-themed bedroom, huddled in amongst the pillows with tears drying on her cheeks and Fitz’s phone pressed to her ear. Jemma smiles through her own tears. “That’s alright,” she says, trying to keep her voice from sounding quite so pained, “I don’t think he’ll mind.”

“Will you tell him?”

“Not if you don’t want me to,” she promises.

Orla seems to consider it. But her next words are something Jemma doesn’t expect. “He’s sad.”

Jemma stifles her tears and tries to comfort her niece. “I know he is. And that’s alright.”

“It is?” And Orla’s voice is so confused that Jemma cannot help but laugh. “At school they say it’s not nice to be sad.”

“It’s not nice to be sad. It makes our insides feel all funny and that’s not nice, you’re right. But if something hurts us then it’s okay to be sad about it,” she patiently explains.

“So it’s okay to cry?”

 _It better be,_ Jemma thinks, feeling the hot lump of tears begin to press against her throat, obstructing her voice so she has to swallow a few times in order to speak.

“Of course it is,” she manages to get out. “You can cry as much as you need to, and that’s perfectly alright.”

There’s silence and then, “will you come over tomorrow? I have homework on science and daddy says you’re even smarter than him at science so would you help me? Please,” she tacks on at the end, obviously remembering her talk about manners.

Jemma manages to chuckle, loving how conveniently Fitz decided suddenly she was the better one at science. “Of course I’ll come over.”

“Thank you,” Orla says dutifully and the line goes so quiet, so still, that Jemma almost ends the call, convinced that Orla’s decided it’s time to go to bed. But the small voice returns, sounding smaller and unsure than it ever as been:

“Will you stay on the phone with me until I go to sleep?”

She wants to remind Orla that she can speak to her father, that Fitz would be there for her in a heartbeat. That there is no need to keep things from him because he loves her and would do anything for her. But she reminds herself that it’s not her place, that Orla is a carbon-copy of her father and so she does for his daughter what she would do for him and simply says, “Of course I will.”

It doesn’t take long for Orla’s breathing to even out, but even fifteen minutes later Jemma can’t bear to disconnect.

She loves this child so much that it’s hard to put into words, and Orla isn’t even her own. How cruel, she thinks, could a person be to just abandon her, to leave in the middle of the night like a thief instead of a mother. No matter her reasons, no matter why. There are ways to do things and leaving your own daughter to think that she is bad is not one of them.

Except anger won’t get her anywhere, Jemma knows. She’s had experience of being angry with wayward parents before and knows that it is fruitless. Instead she turns over in her bed, and, with Orla’s deep breathing in her ear, she tries to go to sleep.

-x-

Fitz sits in front of her, hands wrapped tightly around his cup of tea. Jemma worries that it’s burning him – it must be, she just poured it from the kettle – but she says nothing, the bewildered look on his face halting her.

“No, we uh, that’s fine,” he says, in response to Jemma’s question about Orla’s birth certificate. “I’m on it, I was there.” A humourless chuckle. “Definitely sorted that.”

A relief begins to flood Jemma, but she doesn’t let it show and instead nods. “Well that’s excellent then; it saves us a lot of worry.”

“You really didn’t have to do this.” He gestures to her notes that she’s been adding to all day, in snatched minutes of respite at work. “It’s my problem , Jemma. My fault.”

She is stunned, pauses for a few minutes to wonder if she’s misheard him. “ _Fault?_ It’s absolutely not your fault, Fitz. You are not responsible for her decisions.”

It’s a message she’s been trying to give him for the past five years, and maybe now he’ll finally understand.

Fitz gives her a bitter smile. “People keep on leaving me.” A half-shrug as he looks down into his tea, mumbling, “Must be something to do with me.”

To be honest she has wondered when this would make an appearance. The similarities between Annie and his Father have always been a little bit too clear for her liking.

“Listen to me,” she tells him firmly, leaning forward. “This is not your fault. It is nothing to do with you. Your father, Annie, they aren’t right to do what they’ve done. You do not deserve this.” His mouth is still downcast and so she changes tack. “Orla does not deserve this. You would never let her think that this was her fault, would you?”

He narrows his eyes at her; instant, unconscious reproach for even suggesting such a thing. “’Course I wouldn’t.”

“Well then, why would you ever let yourself think it was your fault? And besides,” she offers him a smile, “I haven’t left you. And I won’t.”

Jemma’s world is science. It’s black and it’s white, it’s right and it’s wrong. If you add oxygen and hydrogen you get water. If you break down starch you get glucose. There are rules, clear-cut definitions, explanations of how things should be.

It is so clear to her that it’s not Fitz’s fault, that nothing he has ever done has warranted this, that part of her doesn’t understand how he can’t see it. How could he ever think he has ever deserved this by someone that was lucky enough to be loved by him? How could he ever think it was his fault?

But part of her understands, because there is no clear reason why Annie has done what she has. And in the absence of a logical conclusion, Jemma knows he is only doing what they have both been taught to do and find the answer that seems to make the most sense. To Fitz, that answer is him, and she knows that she could trace his working all the way back to his father.

Fitz gives her a grateful smile and unfurls his hands from around the mug of tea. “So,” he begins, letting her know that he’s done with this line of conversation, “how’s Jack?”

“Ugh, Fitz, how could you text him that? He must have thought I’d been done away with by an axe murder on the subway or something, the way he was acting.”

Fitz grins. “Sorry.”

“No you’re not,” she counters, shaking her head.

“You’re right, I’m not.” He takes a sip of his tea. “You nervous about him meeting your parents?”

In a strange way she’s terrified. This is the third boyfriend of hers that her parents have met and while her parents are perfectly lovely and polite to them, her mum asks at the end of every dinner, without fail, when she’s going to see Fitz again and it makes her boyfriends rather uncomfortable.

“A bit,” she admits, for it’s all she can say without ever revealing why she’d be more distressed. “But I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she dismisses with a wave, convinced that if she says it enough it will be.

“I’m sure it will be,” Fitz assures her. “If they’re able to like me then they’ll definitely like Jack.”

“They’ve known you for almost ten years, which is quite a considerably longer time.”

And as she says the words, she’s struck by how she’s known Fitz for ten years. A decade. A lifetime. Ten years of anything and everything together and it feels like no time at all. And she wonders, not for the first time, how Annie could ever bear to leave him at all.

“Funny how ten years feels like no time at all, doesn’t it?” Fitz says, as though plucking the words straight from her mind.

“Yes,” she says, quietly, distractedly. “Quite funny.”

-x-

The dinner with Jack and her parents only a few days later goes extremely well.

They laugh, and they joke. Her father bonds with Jack on the fact that they are both teachers, and her mother bonds with Jack on the fact that he said that he was quite taken with Jemma’s academic research.

“Well that’s a relief,” her mother laughs. “You’ve made it where most others have failed, so you have.” Then she pauses, as if considering. “Well, actually everyone usually fails there. Except Fitz that is. Oh, speaking of Fitz. Jemma, when am I going to see him again? I’ve bought Orla some things. Fitz too, of course. I’d never leave him out.”

Jemma almost dreads looking over to Jack after that comment, but he smiles genuinely and laughs. “Well I’m glad I can be seen to be on par with Fitz.” He looks to Jemma. “I guess we have a lot in common.”

Her mother looks to her father knowingly. Jemma expects a loud remark but the only thing that passes her mother’s lips is a smirk and a, “I suppose you do,” which sounds much weightier than it’s meant to.

 

“That was nice,” Jack comments later, when they’re walking together arm in arm.

“It was lovely,” Jemma admits, because it was, but she doesn’t feel the ease she should feel after eating her father’s delicious cooking. Her mind is running at a million miles a minute.

“We should do it again.”

She stalls, looks at him as if he might be insane. “Just maybe not for a little while, yeah? There was a reason I moved out at seventeen, after all.”

“Fair enough,” he agrees easily, the way that he always does. “We should do something tomorrow, how about it? You free? I don’t think work was on your calendar.”

She pauses for a moment, remembering the colour-coded calendar sitting on her kitchen worktop. “No, it’s not. I’m afraid I can’t tomorrow, anyway. I’m going with Fitz to see his solicitor.”

Jack’s face turns from serene to shocked in less than a millisecond. “How come you’re going to a solicitor? I thought the birth certificate thing was all sorted out.”

“It is. His name is definitely on it,” she says definitively, recalling how she’d made sure of the document herself. “But he wants to make sure there’s no way Annie can just come back and take Orla.”

“Oh wow,” he whistles lowly. “Alright then. How about the Sunday?”

Jemma smiles fondly. “I’m helping Orla with her science homework.”

“Monday?”

“Work. Then I’m taking Orla to her dentist appointment because Fitz has to work late.”

She doesn’t miss the way Jack’s smile tightens, how his brow furrows.

“What?” She asks him, but he shakes his head and keeps on walking, Jemma realising she was unaware they’d stopped. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing, Jemma.” He sighs deeply, maybe waiting for something that never comes. He gives her a tight-lipped smile and a dry peck on her cheek. “It’s nothing.”

It’s quite clearly something, she isn’t stupid. She could argue it, hook on like a terrier to a bone, but her head is too full of other things to care as much as maybe she should, and so she lets it go.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update! Finally!  
> I'm sorry this has taken a little bit of a while - work and other things, you know? Also, I'm posting this very quickly before I go to work so if there are any errors or things like that then that's why!  
> Thank you incredibly much for all of your kudos/comments! They mean a great deal and I appreciate the support tremendously. Lots of love!

 

In the coming weeks, Jemma finds herself almost seamlessly transitioning to a new way of life that doesn’t feel like a new way of life at all.

She goes to work, devoting her everything in the hours that she’s there in order to keep afloat of everything new coming in. After work she’ll usually go to Fitz’s house, spend time with Orla, help with anything she can help with in order to make the absence of a wife and mother seem less glaring. Sometimes, after Orla’s gone to bed, her and Fitz will stay up so late, like they’ve forgotten that they aren’t nineteen again, that she’ll fall asleep on the sofa and will wake up at five-thirty in a mad panic, rushing back to her flat for a shower and a change of clothes before the cycle starts over again.

The thing is, she doesn’t even realise she’s fallen into a cycle, it comes that naturally to her. And she’s enjoying it all (perhaps not the mad rush through the city at five thirty in the morning – it’s the utter opposite of preparation). She enjoys going to work and having to sift through in-tray – finding it exciting to know what new things she’ll get to work on, checking the results of her ongoing projects like they’re a prize and being ridiculously happy when it’s all worked out. There’s something so relaxing about going to Fitz’s house after, getting to help Orla with her homework or let her niece ‘teach’ her about how addition works, or the new words she’s learning in school. And she enjoys telling Fitz about her days when they’re sitting together on the sofa watching mind-numbing late-night television because it reminds her of a time when they were both young and they shared a flat and there wasn’t all of this heartbreak and they could just be ‘them’.

Of course, it means some things in her life have suffered, things that she doesn’t even realise she has neglected. She hasn’t stayed in her flat properly for a while, and only notices when the pile of post collecting on her hallway table is in danger of collapse, and there’s a thin layer of dust on her kitchen worktops. She spends a rare day off cleaning it, vowing to spend more time in her own house, reorganise her own life, that the last few weeks have just been a phase she needed to help her best-friend and his daughter pass through.

Except that vow lasts as long as she unknowingly stays in the lab working until well past midnight and, too tired to drive all the way across the city to go home, on autopilot she texts Fitz to ask if she can stay at his because he lives only five minutes away and there’s a toothbrush that literally has her name on it.

They used to live together five years ago and it doesn’t seem like it was half a decade ago when she’s laughing with him over dinner or they’re arguing about what movie to watch. They used to do this all the time, still regularly did it on and off throughout the past five years, and even though maybe she should be there for him in a different way, even though maybe she should be a little more distant when offering her support, it doesn’t feel _wrong_ and so much of her enjoys having her best friend back that she purposefully forgets to think about the implications of it all.

She sits at Fitz’s kitchen table, a cup of tea in front of her, Fitz making dinner at the cooker, an image that has become so very representative of her life in these past few weeks. They’re bickering over the scientific accuracy in the Jurassic Park franchise when something catches Jemma’s eye. An envelope in the middle of the coffee table – a brown padded one bearing Fitz’s name and address in a handwriting that’s unfamiliar, the blue second-class stamp glaring from the top right-hand corner.

“What’s this?” She murmurs to herself, reaching out to bring it closer, the overwhelming curiosity not even allowing room to think that this isn’t actually her post.

She slides it across the table not harshly, but the action is enough to make the item inside dislodge and a ring falls onto the table with a c _link._

Jemma picks it up between her thumb and forefinger. It should be familiar to her, something in her brain tells her, but for the life of her she can’t place it and no logical conclusion comes to her in that moment.

“Fitz? What’s this?”

He turns around, eyes widening in surprise then dropping in resignation. There isn’t even anything indicating indignation at his post being opened by someone else.

“Eh…” he scratches the back of his neck, looks down at the floor where Jemma’s imagining he’s scuffing his shoes against the tile. “That’s her ring… Annie’s ring.” He looks back up at her, sees how she’s still confused. “Her engagement ring.”

Jemma feels her skin begin to get rather hot, her eyebrows raise all on their own. The disbelief is overwhelming, and the utter _audacity_ of this woman is quite frankly disgusting for Jemma. To send an engagement ring back in the post, a ring that’s meant to symbolise love and commitment and _being there,_ with no note to be seen and weeks later, is abhorrent. Of course there’s no proper etiquette on how to return an engagement ring, Jemma realises this quite well, but some ways are more proper than others and if you’re going to do something like this, then at least do it right.

She bites back a remark about _Well at least she’s definitely not coming back now_ (partly because it’s not helpful at all, and partly because she doesn’t want to be seen to be _that_ woman) and instead says something else that’s been bothering her ever since she picked the ring up.

“It doesn’t look like your grandmother’s engagement ring.”

For that was the ring she thought Fitz was going to use. He’d shown it to her, the day he’d told her he was going to propose to the mother of his child and Jemma remembers the simple gold band and pear-drop diamond quite fondly. She remembers how his face had lit up when he’d told her it used to belong to his grandmother, who had given it to his mother to give to him.

_“She was married to my grandad for sixty-seven years,” he’d told her, wide-eyed with hope. “Said it was good luck.”_

_“Well then,” Jemma had replied, voice light, trying to make herself mean it, “it’s good that Annie’s getting such a wonderful ring, isn’t it?”_

Fitz shakes his head (maybe remembering that conversation, too). “That’s ‘cause it’s not.” He hesitates, as if deciding whether or not to say something before just going for it. “She didn’t like it. Wanted something new and her own. Thought that was fair, you know?”

It would be fair and reasonable but knowing how much family means to Fitz, how much courage it would have taken him to share this with her, brings another pool of resentment into Jemma’s heart. She doesn’t say anything about Annie, keeps her thoughts to herself.

“I’ll bet your mum was disappointed then,” she tries to joke, but it sounds flat. Unable to look at him, she keeps her eyes on the ring.

She hears Fitz chuckle. “She never thought I’d actually give Annie any ring, to be honest. Never mind hers. She uh- when I told her, she said she thought the ring was for…” he trails off, and Jemma looks up. There’s a millisecond where she finds him giving her an odd sort of look before he drops his gaze. “She didn’t think the ring was for her anyway, so I don’t expect she was that heartbroken.”

“That’s not so bad then,” she says lightly, setting the ring down a little more carelessly than she intended to. It makes a harsh clunk on the table and the sound bounces around her head for the rest of the evening.

-x-

Jemma’s having dinner with Jack when she receives a phone call from Fitz. It’s not an important phone call, nothing like the earth-shattering one he made only weeks ago. He asks if she’s able to take Orla for a few nights next week. He’s having to go away for work, tried to get out of it but couldn’t. Apologises over and over. She says ‘of course’ and ‘it’s really no problem’ and hangs up.

Jack looks at her suspiciously as she goes back to eating her pasta with no further comment. “What was that?” He asks.

His tone makes Jemma sit up, take notice. Surely he can’t be annoyed about her using her phone at the dinner table? Yes, it’s rude but it doesn’t warrant such a tone, surely? It’s not an important dinner, not an anniversary or a memorable event. Just the two of them eating dinner as they have done before.

“Fitz has to go away for a few nights next week,” she says slowly, waiting for a reaction. “He asked me if I would have Orla to stay, which I told him of course I would.”

Jack takes a sip of his wine, She watches as he decides what to say. His next words sound airy but she can read between the lines. “Can his mum not take her?”

“I don’t know. I never asked.”

“Huh. That’s going to cause some issues for you at the lab, won’t it?”

In another tone, Jemma might concede this to be a fair point. Lately she has been working non-stop days that start at eight and finish around midnight and she doesn’t even realise that the rest of the university has been shut up until she takes a rare glance out the window and notices the complete darkness where there should be light. Leaving anytime before the middle of the night is frowned upon and yes, the rational mind in her can agree that it’s not the most ideal time for Jemma to have a child in her charge.

But it’s not just any child, now. It’s Orla Fitz. Her pseudo-niece. Who she wouldn’t even have to look after in the first place if her mother hadn’t done a runner. So for a few days she can endure the not-so-subtle looks from her lab manager and the over-the-top sighs from the project leader as she stars at nine and leaves at quarter to three. Besides, she’s naturally ahead in her assigned work anyway, and she hasn’t taken holidays over a year, so there’s really no reason it should matter.

She explains all of this to her boyfriend, who just nods his head like he doesn’t agree and goes back to eating his pasta. She waits for him to eventually speak his piece, which he does in around thirty seconds.

“Do you not think that maybe Fitz needs to learn to do this by himself?”

The words make her pause, look at someone she’s meant to love as if he’s a stranger. “What?”

“I just think that he’s relying on you a little too much. Maybe he needs to learn how to do this whole parenting thing without you there?”

“But why?”

Because, truly, she doesn’t see why he must. Parenting should never be a solo task, it should always be a two parent endeavour. It’s unfair for him to be alone, especially when it wasn’t his choice to be.

“Because, Jemma.” Jack’s fork clatters to the plate as he spreads his hands in emphasis. “Because you might not always be here for him. You have such great things going for you at work – I’ve seen the job offers lying on the table. Places from all over the world want you. You could go so far. But I know you. I know you’ll hold yourself back, hold yourself here for him and that’s not fair to either of you.”

Jemma feels like she can’t breathe, betrayal making her chest tight. “So you’re telling me that, what? I should just leave him to do it alone?” She shakes her head. “No. That’s not fair.”

Jack exhales deeply. “No, I’m not saying that.” He reaches his hands for hers but Jemma pulls them back, out of his reach. He hangs his head briefly before continuing. “All I’m saying it, maybe he shouldn’t be _so_ dependant on you, maybe he should be able to experience things alone every so often.”

She stands up from the table, pushing her chair back so hard that it wobbles precariously for a few seconds. Embarrassed to find tears in her eyes, she ignores all of the dinner etiquette her parents have ever taught her and walks over to the sink, grabbing a tissue and trying to discreetly wipe her eyes. Once she feels a bit calmer, she moves over to the door because it’s impossible to carry on with dinner, now. She looks back to Jack, who looks t her imploringly, begging her to understand.

She can’t.

“We’ve always been there for each other,” she tells him, voice quiet but strong. “I don’t intend to change that.”

Because they’ve been by each other’s side for the whole damn time, and there is no way in hell that she begins to back away now.

-x-

Orla comes to stay the next again week, toting her blue spotty suitcase and her grin that lights up the world.

Jemma resolves to make it fun for her, to make her forget why she’s having to stay in the fun place. On the first night, for dinner, breaking all of her self-imposed rules, they order in a pizza and have ice-cream for dessert. For breakfast, Jemma puts banana in the shape of a smiley face on Orla’s cereal and packs her lunch with different colours of the electromagnetic spectrum. After she picks her up from school they go to the park, play on the swings and the slides for a ridiculously long time and after dinner and homework is done, Jemma shows her basic kitchen science experiments like magic milk and the vinegar volcano.

It’s a little bit exhausting, because she’s never had to care for a child before and although Jemma’s tried, it’s not exactly something one can prepare for. But she loves it, that’s what she finds strange. Despite her lack of experience, lack of preparation, lack of the ability to relate to children that she’s struggled with all of her life, she enjoys taking care – but more importantly s _pending time_ – with this little human who isn’t hers.

On the last night, after the swings and experiments and all the homework is done, Jemma tucks Orla into her guest bed that’s far too big for such a small child. She tells her stories of brilliant female scientists, ones who had to fight to get even the chance to be heard, in absence of the more traditional bedtime stories that she’s never had much admiration for anyway.

“Wow.” Orla blinks up at her, owl-eyed in her pyjamas in a too-big bed. “That’s _amazing_.”

“Isn’t it just,” Jemma agrees, tucking the duvet further around the four-year-old. “Now, it’s quite late considering you have school tomorrow.”

“Awwww. Can I not just stay up with you a little bit later? Please?”

“It’s already past your bedtime,” Jemma says, although she would quite like to stay up with her niece and watch cartoons huddled together on the sofa. But it is a school night, after all.

“I like spending time with you, though,” Orla huffs.

“I like spending time with you, too,” Jemma replies, kissing her on the nose making Orla giggle.

“Daddy likes spending time with you. He smiles more when you’re there.”

It shouldn’t mean so much, the word of a four year old who thinks fairies are responsible for lighting up the streetlights at night. Yet Jemma’s heartbeat begins to take on an irregular rhythm of its own accord.

“Does he now?” She asks lightly, watching as Orla’s brow furrows and she puts on her comical ‘thinking face’.

“Yeah, he does,” she decides, very firm in her opinion.

“I like spending time with your daddy, too,” she tells her, but the voice is remarkably different to the one she used before. She doesn’t even thin she recognises it.

Orla looks mildly offended. “But not more than me?” She asks suspiciously.

“Oh, no,” Jemma laughs, heartbeat restored. She kisses her on the forehead once more. “Never more than you.”

-x-

The next time Jemma ends up spending the night at the Fitz household is only a few weeks later.

She’s been at the lab later and later, for there is no reason to really go home. Her and Jack still aren’t quite right, and going home only reminds her of the fact. Besides, her home doesn’t really feel like a home anymore. Not now, when she knows the vibrancy of family.

It’s late, well into the wee hours of the morning. Soon it will be time to get up for work. She really should get to sleep. There’s a film playing on the television, it’s light the only light, casting those ghostly shadows around the room.

They’re sitting together on the sofa, curled into each corner with their legs intermingled in the middle. Fitz is asleep, snoring softly. She should go to bed, to the guest room, to sleep, but somehow she finds that she can’t.

_He smiles more when you’re there._

Orla’s words from weeks ago ring in her ears. It’s something she can’t shake ever since. She keeps stealing glances at Fitz, wondering if maybe he doesn’t always look the way he does to her. Jemma looks at him now – the way he’s asleep on the couch. Mouth relaxed, no lines around his eyes. He looks at peace. And, selfishly, for she knows she shouldn’t, she wonders if he doesn’t sleep peacefully when she’s not around.

There had been a time, many years ago, before he’d met Annie that she’d wondered… She lets out a small laugh, snuggles deeper into the sofa, feeling her eyes begin to droop. It’s too comfortable here to move anywhere else. Jemma lets herself be lulled to sleep by Fitz’s soft snores, wondering about whatever happened to what was seemingly the inevitable.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update! 4/7! We're over halfway there now, and it's lovely but I think I shall miss it when I'm finished.   
> Thank you to all of you out there reading and leaving kudos and commenting because you're all so sweet and kind and lovely and THANK YOU!   
> I think these updates shall probably be roughly weekly, from now on, because of work and such things. I hope that's alright!   
> Thank you once again!

As Jemma always seemingly seems to do in times of romantic crises, she consults Daisy.

She’s known Daisy for almost as long as she’s known Fitz, a genius in computing who had offered help to Jemma when a mandatory computing module wasn’t making as much sense as biology did in her brain. They’ve become close, and in a world where Jemma had never had a knack for making friends, had never been able to understand other people the way she sometimes would have liked, she is very glad for Daisy.

They meet up in a coffee shop in the middle of the city. It’s a warmer day; the wind is more a gentle breeze than a hurricane category and you can walk around without a coat. Impulsively, they decide to sit outside.

“God,” Daisy comments, as they settle into their seats. “You know, in the States, there are places you can sit outside all year round without worrying if you’re going to freeze to death.”

Jemma smiles as she watches the previously gentle breeze blow ripples into her tea. “Well what’s the fun in that? Then it wouldn’t be exciting when we did get to sit outside.”

“Wouldn’t need to be exciting. Would just need to be w _arm._ ” She takes a big gulp of her coffee. “So, how’s it going?”

“It’s going alright. I suppose.”

Daisy leans forward. “Just fine? Oh come on, Jemma. Surely it’s got to be more than that.”

Jemma considers. “No, just fine.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. Last time we spoke Fitz’s god-awful fiancée had run off, Jack was meeting your parents and your boss at the lab was being a dick.”

“Daisy!” Out of paranoia, Jemma glances around in case anybody might have heard. “I never said that.”

“I know you didn’t.  I said it and I’ll say it again. I’ve met him, and he is a dick.” Daisy leans back in her chair. “You gotta tell me what’s been happening. I don’t like being out the loop.”

“There’s not much to tell, I’m afraid,” Jemma admits, but she dutifully recounts the past month and a half, enjoying all of the expressions on Daisy’s face as she does so.

Daisy whistles lowly once she’s done. “Holy crap, Jemma. If that’s your definition of ‘not much’ then I’d hate to see what you think is a lot.”

Jemma laughs nervously. “I didn’t think it was a lot.”

“Not a lot? Fitz has feelings for you and you have feelings for him and even the kid is picking up on it. Jack, too, by the way and he definitely doesn’t like it. Not that I blame him but poor guy really should’ve seen it from the start so no helping him there. Annie’s a bitch for sending her engagement ring back like that but, again, not much change there.”

“Daisy!” Jemma admonishes again, but with the lack of usual scold. After all, about that last part she’s not exactly wrong.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Daisy challenges and when Jemma says nothing she smirks and says, “Thought not. So, you and Fitz, huh?”

“There is no Fitz and I,” Jemma denies, because there really isn’t. There’s just the friendship that’s always been there, only more pronounced now because there’s nothing else to distract from it. But it’s still the two of them the way there’s always been the two of them.

“You know, I don’t know why you both keep denying it. It’s super obvious. Has been obvious for the last ten years.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says loftily, taking another sip of her tea. She’s never been very good at lying, and perhaps the teacup will make it seem less like she is.

“I was there, remember? That time about five years ago when you said that you’d made up your mind, that you were gonna tell him?”

“Please-” Jemma tries to halt what’s coming, tries to stop the memory from coming to the surface or her brain because she’s done such an excellent job in burying it for all these years.

“And I was there when he told you about Annie? About how he thought he could be happy with her? And you called me cryi-”

“ _Enough_ ,” Jemma says sharply, in a tone she didn’t know she possessed. “Please, no more,” she says more softly, more quietly, not wanting to remember that humiliation, that feeling of utter foolishness that had engulfed her for weeks and had made her feel as though she was burning every time Fitz even said so much as ‘hi’.

Daisy’s face is soft, and she says no more about that particular incident. Instead, she changed tracks and says, “What I don’t get is, though, why did he stay with her? She was awful right from the start – we could all see it.”

They could all see it but they never said anything, and Jemma thinks maybe that’s on them instead of on Fitz. That’s their guilt to shoulder. But she knows the answer as to why they never did, because it’s the same reason as to why Fitz always stayed.

“He wanted his own family,” Jemma says softly, and for a second she’s not sitting in a coffee shop on a busy street in Glasgow but she’s sitting in a freezing student room with the curtains shut listening to a lost little boy talk about his wayward father. “After everything that happened with his dad, his mum being a single parent… when Annie told him she was pregnant he never would have left her after that.” She bows her head briefly, thinking of everything that might have been different.

Daisy seems stilled, too, her eyes looking like she understands but wishes she didn’t. “Yeah,” she nods. “Yeah, I get that.”

“And now she’s gone and Fitz thinks it’s his fault. That, somehow, he’s failed Orla by not giving her this perfect family.”

Daisy snorts. “ _Failed_ her? That kid is the sweetest kid I’ve ever met. I’ve seen him around her. No way could he ever let her down. Besides,” she shrugs, “no such thing as the perfect family. Just different ones.”

Jemma reaches over to take hold of Daisy’s hand, remembering there are some things that make Daisy and Fitz more similar than she realises.

Daisy squeezes gratefully. “You know,” she says, wiping her eyes discreetly. “Next time we’re having these conversations in a bar with something a hell of a lot stronger than coffee.”

Jemma laughs. “Now _that_ sounds like an excellent idea.”

-x-

“and _then_ ,” Fitz breaks off. “Jemma? Are you listening?”

“Wha- oh sorry, Fitz,” Jemma apologises. “Do go on.”

He doesn’t, and instead looks down at her plate. Jemma follows his gaze, finds her fork playing with her uneaten dinner on her plate and inwardly chides herself for her bad manners.

“Are you alright?” He asks her, his face the picture of concern.

“Perfectly alright,” she tells him, a little bit too fast. “Just a little bit lost in my own head today, it seems. Nothing to worry about.”

She’s been lost in her own head ever since she’s spoken to Daisy, ever since those memories of what feels like a lifetime ago have been brought to the surface of her mind.

She’d been so young and so… _in love_ that she hadn’t even realised it. And when she had, when she’d spent weeks gathering enough grit and determination to just _tell him already_ it had been too late and she’d felt like her entire world was falling apart. What’s even worse, what had only added to the distress, is that she _knew_ it was a ridiculous way to feel, knew how petty it was to feel disappointed. People died from horrible things all over the world every day, people have had far worse atrocities happen to them and while people had been crying over their worlds ending she had been crying over a boy.

And, really, what was there to cry about? She was still his best-friend, nothing had changed between them. He was still Leopold Fitz and she was still Jemma Simmons and so what if she couldn’t have _that_ type of relationship with him anyway? Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

So she moved on. Really, truly she did. She watched her best-friend become a father, become one of the best she had ever seen and she loved it. Even though it was odd, because ever since they were sixteen they had shared almost all of their live experiences together, done everything with each other at the same time and although she knew it couldn’t last forever, this big event in her friend’s life was something she could share in in only a very limited capacity, never fully.

“You’ve got that look on your face.” She breaks out of thought to find Fitz staring at her, worriedly. “You know, that one where you’re thinking deeply about something.”

“Just work,” she lies, far too easily.

“Okay,” he says simply, leaving it alone but steals worried glances at her for the rest of the night that leave her feeling incredibly guilty.

-x-

One day she arrives home from work and finds Jack sitting outside her front door, knees up to his chest and turning something over and over in his hands. Instantly, Jemma knows why he’s come. Still, she stops in front of him and says softly, “You have a key.”

He startles at her voice and jumps up, wiping his dusty hands on his trousers. His smile is false, but there’s no malice in his eyes. Only a wistfulness that makes her sad.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, opening his hands slightly to reveal the silver key. “Didn’t feel right… you know?”

She hums and opens the door to her flat using her own key. Somehow, they end up in the middle of her living room, standing before each other like the perfect strangers they have become to one another.

Jemma waits for him to speak, aware that this is how it must be. Though it’s well past the time for words. She’s well aware of that too.

“I uh, well,” Jack begins, rubbing the back of his neck. “I think…” He blows out a breath, looks at her sheepishly. “I don’t really know what to say.”

“It’s alright,” Jemma says, taking pity, making it easier. “I understand.”

“Do you though?” He says plaintively. “Do you understand why?”

A little lick of temper begins to flame  but Jemma does her best to tame it. “Yes.” Her voice is measured. Calm. “I do.”

“I don’t want to be the guy, Jemma, that makes you choose.” Jack takes a step closer to her and for a second she feels as though she’s falling in love all over again but it’s not right. It never has been right. “And so I’m not going to be.”

His voice is a whisper, soft against her skin but they sting as though they came with a slap. She truly doesn’t mean for her bottom lip to tremble but it does so anyway and there isn’t a thing she can do to stop it.

“I know you love him,” he tells her, and she goes to interrupt but he holds up a finger, laughing softly. “You always have. Even in ways I don’t think you know yet. And I’ve known, always known but I just thought that I could have with you what you have with him.”

The words are devastating, but there’s no denying their truth. “I would never-”

“It was always going to happen, don’t you think? I mean sooner or later we’d always end up at this point.”

“You don’t know that,” she says earnestly. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“C’mon, Jemma. You’re a scientist,” he tilts his head to one side. “Surely you know something about catalysts.”

To her utter dismay a tear begins its slow descent down her face and she doesn’t even know why for this isn’t a sad moment, it doesn’t feel as sad as one would expect it to.

“I wondered what it would be like,” he muses. “If I’d come here, telling you all this, and you said that you’d want me. That you’d choose me. And when I did I found myself kind of disappointed. I love you, Jemma, but I don’t think I’d ever want you to choose me.”

The words perplex her. In her logical world it makes no sense. The calculations do not add up. He must know, he must see, for her gathers her up in what will be their last embrace and whispers into her hair:

“I guess if I was ever lucky enough to find what you two have, then I’d want somebody to be able to let me go.” His breath is shuddery and maybe, just maybe, he’s on the edge too. “I’m not pushing you away to go be with him, I’m not. I’m saying,” and then he pulls aware from her and she understands, understands the need for her to see his face when he tells her this, “I’m saying you should be able to be in his life, in whatever capacity, without me being in the way.”

Jemma stands there limp, arms hanging by her sides. What do people do with their arms, she finds herself wondering. What do people do when the end that feels like a beginning is right in front of them?

Jack swipes at his eyes. “I should be going,” he says.

Jemma nods, eager to move on yet also unwilling. “That is probably for the best. Do you-” She stops, clears her throat. “Do you have all your things?”

“There’s only one thing here I mind leaving,” he says, but looks away from her eyes as he does so. Unfurling his hand, he holds it out to her. “I think this belongs to you.”

She takes the silver key and holds is tightly in her balled fist, the grooves cutting into her palm. “Goodbye, Jack.”

“Bye, Jemma,” and he gives her a peck on the cheek before making his way to the door.

Jemma doesn’t turn around, not until she’s heard the soft click that means he’s gone and even then, she stays standing where she is, looking around her flat. She feels like s stranger here. It was her home, but now it’s just a house. There’s no life in it, nothing worth anything as important as things she’s come to know.

Maybe she should want to be alone, but she doesn’t feel as sad as people usually do, as lost, and that’s how she knows that this, for all it’s pain, was right.

She gathers her coat and her bag and makes for the door as well, letting it shut resolutely behind her without so much as a backwards glance


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, a big thank you for the kind kudos and comments and support! It makes me so happy and all warm and fuzzy inside and I love that so thank you!
> 
> Secondly, I know you should love all your chapters equally but I think this one might be my favourite. It's 5/7 which means only two more to go which makes me sad but also satisfied because the ending is coming and *spoiler* happiness. 
> 
> Thirdly, I saw Mamma Mia 2 this afternoon (it was AMAZING!) and I'm currently sitting listening to the soundtrack so the last part of this was written in a Mamma Mia fuelled haze so if it seems a little out of whack then blame Lily James and her singing and her amazing hair! 
> 
> Fourthly, I really hope you enjoy it. Thank you for coming along this far!

It momentarily puzzles Jemma that, when she goes to answer her phone, Fitz’s picture flashes up. It doesn’t stun her, but it definitely makes her tilt her head in a brief confusion when she sees that Fitz is trying to get in touch with her, and only now does it hit her how seldom they have needed to speak on the phone nowadays.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jemma.” His voice is so familiar now, she knows it better than she knows her own. He sounds nervous but not terribly panicked and so she relaxes and loosens muscles she didn’t even realise she had clenched. “I have a favour.”

“Intriguing,” she laughs. “Alright, what is it?”

“Well, see Orla’s school has this kind of mum’s and dad’s dance thing next week and she wanted me to ask you if you’d uh, if you’d like to go. With me, that is.”

“But I’m not her mum,” Jemma blurts reflexively, a reaction to the sudden hammering of her heart.

“Yeah, I know that,” Fitz answers with a laugh but there’s a bit of a bruise in his voice. “It was Orla’s idea she just… it’s okay, Jemma.”

Feeling as though she must explain for her knee-jerk reaction, Jemma says, “I just don’t want her to think I’m replacing Annie or trying to take over from her.”

Orla’s a smart child, but as smart as she may be she is still only four years old and Jemma, not sure on the effects of absconding mothers on the psychology of a four year old, doesn’t want to do anything that could cause the child she loves so much any more pain.

“I thinks she just wanted you to be there when she dresses up in a pretty dress and so she can show you off to all her friends. You’re ‘scientist Auntie Jemma’ don’t you know?” Fitz chuckles but then seemingly sobers. “It’s fine, though, if you don’t want to. I get it. I’ll tell her that-”

“Fitz,” she interrupts, “don’t. I’ll come. With you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, it sounds fun. And it rather seems like I have a sort of reputation to live up to.”

“Great!” And she wonders how she could have made him to happy simply by agreeing to go to what is essentially a primary school disco. “I’ll tell you more about it later. Orla just wanted me to phone and ask _now._ You’re still coming for dinner tonight, yeah?”

“Yes, sounds perfect. I’ll see you later.”

As they hang up, Jemma realises that there appears to be butterflies hovering around in her stomach and she can’t quite fathom why. After all, it’s just a disco with Fitz and Orla – her two favourite beings. It’s nothing new, nothing scary, nothing worth the nerves she feels now.

The only problem that she seems to come across is what exactly she’s going to _wear._

-x-

“This is like the third outfit you’ve tried on,” Daisy remarks, leaning against the changing room wall. “I have papers to grade for tomorrow.”

“Perhaps you should have started your marking earlier then,” Jemma retorts, as she squeezes her way into dress number three. Looking at herself in the mirror, she’s met with almost immediate disappointment. This dress shows far too much cleavage than could ever be appropriate for a school dance. She sighs and begins the laborious process of un-squeezing herself from the fabric prison.

“Yeah, yeah. I think that’s your answer for everything; just start it earlier.” Daisy peeks her head around the curtain, causing Jemma to help for she’s currently only in her underwear. “Maybe you should have started dress shopping earlier.”

With the dance being in two days’ time, there is more pressure on Jemma than she would care to admit is comfortable. It’s not as though she’s been putting it off, exactly, but she’s had trouble finding a spare minute and then trying to decide on what exactly one should wear to an event such as this. Plus Daisy had to be free.

She starts to explain this but Daisy holds up one finger to cut her off. “Just admit it,” she says in a sing-song voice. “You’re nervous.”

“Of course I’m nervous,” Jemma hisses, grabbing dress number four off the coat-hanger. “What do you even wear to something like this?”

“You’re telling me you haven’t done any research whatsoever into this?” Daisy raises one eyebrow in disbelief.

“I did try but…” a pause as she tries to slip number four over her head, before discovering that it’s actually the arm hole she’s attempting to strangulate herself with, “Fitz isn’t Facebook friends with anyone whose children have been in the years previously and there’s no other records of this dance I’ve been able to find.”

That’s not entirely true, but the one newspaper article on the dance was written in the 1970s and the pictures accompanying the article didn’t show outfits that would be suitable for one today.

“Look, it’s just a kid’s dance, right?” Daisy asks, clearly taking pity as she watches her friend shimmy out of dress number four with wouldn’t even be flattering on a string bean. “So you just need to wear something you’d wear to your brother’s graduation or something. Nice dress, nothing too smart, nothing too casual.”

“The specificities are outstanding,” Jemma says drily, looking with a critical eye at outfit number five. It’s a hot pink, too low in some places and too high in others and has a rather large bow on the back. Clearly she picked this up in the desperate hope that it would look better once she tried it on but now she isn’t even going to attempt it.

“I dunno why you’re getting so stressed over it. Fitz and Orla are just gonna be so excited you’re going. You could turn up in a garbage bag and they wouldn’t care.”

Jemma knows that, really, it doesn’t matter, but it’s a big event to them and it would be nice to look _nice._

“If your hesitation is about Jack…” Daisy begins, arching her eyebrow once more but in a way that’s softer, and let’s Jemma know that she’s here to talk, whenever she’s ready. But there’s nothing  to talk about.

“Of course it’s not,” she dismisses entirely, not letting thoughts of her ex-boyfriend cloud her looking forward to this event. “Let’s just go out and find some more outfits to try on.”

It takes another forty-five minutes of trying on several different styles and combinations and colours but eventually Jemma finds a dress that is pretty enough and appropriate enough.

As Jemma slides it off and back onto the hanger to take to the till to pay, Daisy from her spot on the floor says wearily, “You know what they say: seventeenth dress lucky.”

-x-

It feels a bit like she is going on a first date, as she stands at her front door, smoothing down non-existent creases on her dress as she waits for Fitz’s knock. He’s meant to pick her up at quarter past six and it’s only just gone five past, but nerves have her hovering anxiously.

Jemma checks her phone, checks her reflection, adds a touch more lipstick even though none has worn off in the five minutes since she last applied it. She dabs some perfume on the inside of her wrists and behind her eyes, the way her own mother taught her when she was four years old. She looks in the mirror again, biting her lip, hoping she looks alright.

Fitz knocks on the door at fourteen minutes past, and there’s a moment, when she opens it, that neither of them speak.

“Wow,” Fitz says softly, the first to break the silence.

“What is it?” Jemma worries that her dress isn’t sitting right, that it’s too fancy, not fancy enough. Her nerves go into overdrive. “Is something wrong?.”

“Uh, no.” Fitz clears his throat, smiling at her shyly. “Not at all. You look really _nice._ ”

“Oh.” She smiles back, indescribably relieved. “Thank you. You clean up rather lovely yourself.”

Indeed, he does. It’s been a while since she’s seen Fitz in a suit, and she’d forgotten the effect it could have on her. The last time had been at their graduations, years ago, and, peering at it, Jemma realises that it’s the same one. Right down to the tie.

“Is that the same tie you’ve always had?” She teases, watching as he flushes red.

“Yeah,” he grins sheepishly. “Good job, though. It matches your dress.”

The royal blue tie does indeed match the flowers printed on her dress and looking down to affirm what she’s just realises covers the blush she feels on her face.

“You ready to escort me to the dance, Jemma Simmons?” Fitz asks, holding out an arm which she accepts with a laugh. How utterly right this feels.

“Lead the way, Leopold Fitz.”

-x-

The primary school have really outdone themselves for the mum’s and dad’s dance. They’ve transformed what Jemma assumes it usually a dinner hall into something out of a fairy-tale. Twinkly lights have been hung from the ceiling, the tables are covered in a soft confetti shaped like snowflakes. Jemma looks around, mouth hanging open slightly. Whatever she expected, it certainly wasn’t this.

Everybody has been given certain tables to sit at, each place setting clearly written by the child related to said adult. The folded-over piece of cardboard bears the full name of the designated person, along with a clip art sticker of some sort. Jemma reads hers to say ‘Auntie Jemma’ along with a microscope sticker. As she sits down she makes sure to slip it into her bag discreetly, knowing she could never leave it behind.

The children are off being children as the adults are left to socialise. At first it’s a little bit awkward; many of the adults at this table have never met either Fitz or Annie before and so they assume that she is Orla’s mother. Fitz takes the lead of explaining the situation; no, Annie’s not here anymore. No, Jemma’s not Orla’s stepmother. No, she’s not biologically related.

“She’s my best friend,” Fitz says, turning to grin at her. Her belly tingles pleasantly. “The best of best-friends really.”

“It’s so wonderful you came along,” one of the other mothers comments. “So selfless really.”

“Definitely,” a father chimes in. “Really selfless.”

Jemma feels herself blushing fiercely, knowing she doesn’t deserve these compliments. It’s not selfless, not really. It’s just natural, just normal to be with Fitz and Orla. It makes her happy to be with them.

Orla comes running up her, tugging her friend behind her. Her curls are flying out of their already precariously arranged updo (she did teach Fitz how to do it – but she knew he’d end up forgetting the hairpin arrangement).

“Auntie Jemma!” She careens into Jemma’s chair, her poor friend looking very much bewildered.

“There you are. Are you having fun?”

Jemma watches her face light up and nod fervently. “Oh, yes! We’re having _so_ much fun!” She turns to her poor bewildered friend. “Aren’t we Mina?”

Mina looks up at Jemma with some kind of wonder on her face and nods slowly, mouth hanging open. In a not-so-subtle whisper she asks Orla, “Is this her?”

Orla shoots her a _play it cool_ look. Turns back to Jemma with a sheepish grin that is so much like her father’s. “This is my Auntie Jemma” she says proudly, puffing out her chest. “And she’s a s _cientist!”_

“ _Wow_ ,” Mina breathes. “That is so _cool_.”

“Yeah, it is.” Orla frowns, seemingly unhappy with how enraptured her friend is. “But she’s my Auntie Jemma, Not yours.” She turns back to Jemma. “I think we’re going to go dance now, okay? Bye!” And she drags Mina away (who looks more than a little crestfallen at being reminded that Jemma wasn’t her auntie) , her purple party dress swishing around her ankles as she runs.

“Orla seems in very high spirits,” Jemma remarks to Fitz, who sits next to her trying to engage in polite if slightly mundane conversation with the other parents at the table. He turns to her with relief evident on his face.

“Yeah, she’s been so excited for this for ages now.” Jemma watches his eyes follow to where his daughter is playing kick about with a balloon and some friends. She hears him sigh. “It took me hours to figure out her hair as well.”

Orla’s hair is now loose and streaming across her face. “Oh dear,” Jemma giggles into her hand. “At least we got some pictures at the start of the night.”

There is a myriad of pictures now in Fitz’s phone, some that have already been sent to her so she can frame them. Her favourite is the one of Fitz and Orla, Orla on Fitz’s shoulders, both of them looking at the camera with the same ridiculous grin on their faces. She’s already asked Fitz for a copy, knows that it will live in the photo wallet of her purse forever.

Orla looks back to them both and waves excitedly. Jemma and Fitz both wave back at the same time which only makes Orla laugh loudly before she runs off to do something else.

“How does she still have so much energy?” Jemma asks Fitz.

“Honestly? No idea. Mum says she must get it from me?”

“Really?” Jemma asks him, shocked. “It took me ages to get you up some days when we were at university. There was that day you didn’t surface until five pm and I thought you’d run off.”

He turns to her with such an odd look on his face; a half smile, half contemplative look that gives her a pleasant ache in her chest.

“What?” She asks.

“Nah, nothing,” he dismisses, and although it’s clearly something, her head holds her back from asking about it.

They sit together in a companionable silence for a bit, letting the evening just wash over them. This is what she’s always enjoyed about her relationship with Fitz. It’s easy, effortless really. There’s no forcing of anything, no compulsion to force anything. They’re quite content with just _being together._ In fact, there’s nobody else she’s ever felt like this with. There’s nobody else she’d want to.

“Alright guys,” the DJ interrupts. “Here’s a slow one. Everyone up on the dance floor now. Parents included.”

Jemma, assuming that this doesn’t apply to her, leans back in her chair and laughs at the grumbles of parents begrudgingly making their way up out of their chairs. She’s absorbed in watching them all take their places, all of the children finding partners to dance with, also, that she doesn’t notice that Fitz is standing in front of her with an arm outstretched until he clears his throat.

“Dance with me?” His voice is a little bit nervous, but his smile is bright and genuine and her heart flutters in her chest in the most unexpected way.

She accepts his hand and lets him lead her to the last empty space in the dance floor. She’s never dances with Fitz before, or at least not that she remembers, but they fit together so naturally that she wonders if her memory is going. Her arms loop around his neck, both his hands burn her lower back and they sway together in time with the music in an uncanny synchronicity, the kind she’s only ever seemed to have with him.

The mood of the night making her brave, she steps closer to him, closing whatever little gap there had been. Fitz’s breath hitches,  only minutely, but he says nothing and his hands on her waist become more sure.

“Thank you,” he murmurs into her hair, “for coming. I really appreciate it.”

“Of course I was going to come, Fitz. What else was I going to do?”

This, right here, feels like exactly where she is meant to be.

“I know this all hasn’t been easy for you either and I’m – I’m so grateful, Jemma.”

There’s a sudden lump in her throat and she buries her face into the soft fabric of Fitz’s suit. It smells like _home._ He holds her tighter, says nothing else, and they sway together as if they were one. The twinkly lights and the soft guitar music make it all feel very dreamlike. If only there had been drinking permitted at this event, and then she could blame the alcohol for the reason it appears that there’s nobody else in the room, only them

She closes her eyes and lets herself pretend. Maybe, just maybe, if she doesn’t open them, then this moment will last forever.

-x-

The dance finishes at ten but it might as well be one in the morning for Orla almost falls asleep standing up and Fitz has to carry her to the car otherwise she’s in danger of falling over. Once they arrive back home, Jemma helps him get her out of the car and opens the front door for him, helping him get his daughter into her pyjamas and into bed.

Once they’re done, he turns to her, cheeks flushed and eyes twinkling and asks, “Stay?”

She clears her throat, perfectly aware of the tension in the air that surrounds them. “Yes,” she agrees, voice barely above a whisper.

They end up watching movies together on the sofa and, the excitement of the night making them a bit more relaxed than they usually are, they end up cuddling on the sofa in a way that neither of them ever have before. Their arms are around each other, Jemma’s head rests on Fitz’s chest while his chin rests on her hair and they breathe at exactly the same time. Jemma can hear his heartbeat under her ear; it’s not fast, not like she thought it might be, but slow and steady and sure.

Like this, in absolute comfort and serenity, does she fall asleep, thinking of nothing except home.

Waking up, however, is a different story.

She awakens first, woken by the bright morning summer sun flooding through the curtains that they didn’t shut last night. Without the haziness of the night before, without the dream-like edges, she’s suddenly very aware of the position they’ve maintained throughout the night. It feels as though someone’s thrown a bucket of cold water over her, and she disentangles herself from Fitz immediately, feeling something akin to shame burn her skin and set it alight.

Fitz awakens with a moan, squinting at her in confusion before it settles on him. He doesn’t look as uncomfortable as she feels. It only makes her feel worse.

“I should be going,” she says hurriedly, looking at her watch. It’s only just gone five. There’s still plenty of time. It terrifies her.

He blinks at her resignedly, says nothing as she stands up and fumbles for her bag, her phone.

“I have to get to work early,” she offers as an explanation to his eyes.

Fitz nods, rubs at his stubble, his face with two hands. “Yup. ‘Course you do.”

Jemma deflates. “I do, Fitz.” Why can’t he be fair to her now? Why can’t he see?

“Yeah, no, I believe you.” He makes no move to get up and stays watching her from his spot on the sofa.

“There’s new equipment arriving at the lab today and-”

“I _know_ ,” he tells her, smiling softly if a little wearily. “It’s fine, really. Do you need me to drive you or-?”

“No, I’ll be fine.”

His smile is weak. “Alright then. Have a good day.”

“Thank you,” she whispers, before grabbing her things and all but fleeing.

There is new lab equipment coming today, she wasn’t lying. She just hadn’t told him yet, didn’t figure she’d ever need the excuse. She’s left Fitz’s house plenty of times in the early morning but never like this. Never because every cell in her body wanted her to stay so badly that it ached.

-x-

It’s midnight when she finally drags herself home from work. It’s been a trying day, and she’s purposely stayed so long in the hopes to avoid her empty flat for as long as she was able. It’s not the same as it once was. Nothing is.

She puts the kettle on to boil and half heartedly puts on her pyjamas, washing her face with a lack of enthusiasm that she doesn’t even have the energy to be surprised at. A cup of peppermint tea in hand, tea  a cure for all ills, she softly makes her way to bed, hoping that maybe tomorrow will be brighter.

Jemma’s just settled under the duvet, just taken her first sip, when her phone buzzes with a call. Her heart stops when Fitz’s picture flashes up but still she doesn’t hesitate to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Fitz’s unsure voice breathes into her ear. “I’m sorry this is so late but I – I wanted to say sorry, for earlier. I was out of line, being like that. Guess I was a bit spooked as well and I took it out on you and I’m sorry.”

Jemma’s heart constricts in her chest, but she feels so much lighter. “I’m sorry, too,” she confesses quietly. It feels good to say it. “For the same reasons as you. I was a little bit disoriented and I ran away without thinking things through properly. I’m sorry.”

There’s a soft chuckle in her ear. “Felt really rotten all day. It was so strange – going so many hours with us being not okay.”

“I know,” she hums, recalling how today she had most certainly felt off-kilter. “It wasn’t pleasant.”

“No, it wasn’t. I think after last night we were just caught up in the mood and, well, I don’t know, I suppose what was alright last night looked kind of wrong in the morning.”

“Yes,” she says carefully, feeling a tell tale burning of frustration behind her eyes. “I suppose.”

“I’ll let you go,” Fitz tells her. She hears him yawn. “I just wanted to say sorry before I went to bed.”

“I should have phoned earlier to apologise as well.” Because she should have. She left it all day, stewing, afraid of what would happen. But this is Fitz. There is no need to be afraid of him.

“Goodnight, Jemma,” he says sleepily, and she responds in kind before hanging up.

Placing her phone on the bedside table a little harder then absolutely necessary, tea forgotten, Jemma throws herself back onto the pillows, longing to tell Fitz that the reason she ran away wasn’t because anything felt wrong, but because it felt absolutely _right._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, finally! I am so terribly sorry this took me so long! I could bore you with the excuse of how I was working and then I was on holiday and then I was working straight after and then I was in Edinburgh today but I don't think it's of any interest to you and anways - ta da! Here it is!
> 
> I've had the end of this written for such a long time , before I even posted the first chapter of this story, written in the notes of my phone. That was certainly a first for me because I always write things chronologically. Anyways, I've tried to fix the formatting and it looks alright on my end but if the last part looks funny then please let me know so I can fix it!
> 
> So I know I said the last chapter might be my favourite, but this one might be a close second (just don't tell the other chapters that). This is the last full one and then *sob* the epilogue. It's been a really fun ride, and I hope you enjoy the end. 
> 
> Thank you to all for sticking with me so far - I hope you enjoy!

Jemma Simmons, although she loved school and her time at university dearly, can never really say she’s missed those days. The freedoms and responsibilities that her job affords her now, the opportunities she’s received make it so she never wants to leave the field. However, when she visits Fitz’s house for dinner one day and Orla’s jumping about the place screaming ‘it’s the summer holidays!’, it makes her long for those days when she was a child when there were seven glorious weeks stretched out in front of her.

“Are you going away on holiday?” she asks Fitz. Things between them are still not fully repaired. Even though they didn’t fight exactly, something has been altered in an irreparable way. There’s tensions round the edges. Not as many texts. No more staying over on the sofa. She blames herself for making their relationship fragile.

“Nah. Not this year.” He looks down at the kitchen table where they sit, identical cups of tea in front of them. “I need to work most of it and then there’s money and stuff.” The guilt is so palpable in his voice that she longs to take his hand in hers and run her thumb over his knuckles like she used to. She goes to do it as well but stops herself before he notices.

“My workload has lessened significantly,” she remarks lightly. “I might be able to take a few extra days off here and there. And I was thinking I might take Orla to the zoo, one day. If that’s alright with you?”

A few weeks ago she wouldn’t have been so awkward in making such a request. There wouldn’t be all of this dancing around. But now her fingers minutely shake and she has to hide them behind her teacup.

Fitz looks up at her, eyes softening, mouth hanging open. “You remembered?”

How could she forget?

Jemma ducks her head, avoids the question. “For giraffes we would probably have to go to Blair Drummond. I don’t think Edinburgh Zoo have any.”

“No, I don’t think they do,” he says distractedly.

“We could make a day of it. Go for dinner. If you don’t mind.”

“No,” he smiles, shaking his head, looking at her like he can’t believe it. “I don’t mind.”

There’s an awkward moment when she smiles at him and there’s so much she longs to say that right there she feels like she can say it, that she’s strong enough but of course she’s not and instead she looks away.

Fitz clears his throat. “She’s kind of been hoping that Annie’ll come back, I think, for the zoo trip.”

“I hope I’m not stepping on any toes,” she tells him immediately, looking up in alarm. It’s the last thing she would want to do, try to take Orla’s mother’s place.

“There’s no toes to step on,” Fitz says. “Look around: she’s not here.”

Oh Jemma is painfully is aware that Annie’s not here. She has no love for this woman, but by goodness things would be a lot simpler if she were here.

“If you’re sure,” she says quietly.

He reaches over to take her hand, a gesture of boldness, contact she’s missed. “I’m very sure.”

-x-

“Now, if you’d like to go to the Meet The Keeper talk for the giraffes then we have to be there for twelve thirty, alright?”

“Twelve thirty,” Orla repeats, beaming up at Jemma. They’ve only been at the safari park for twenty minutes and somehow Orla’s already connived her way into getting her face painted like a penguin and is holding a balloon shaped like an elephant. She’s utterly and completely in her element, chattering away about all of the different animals they’ll see and random facts about all of them, even their scientific names – the pronunciation of which makes Jemma extremely proud.

“And if you lose me then you must go to this building.” Jemma points to a wooden hut, a giant red sign on it to clearly identify it’s purpose. Looking down at her charge, she notices Orla’s gaze is transfixed on a little girl with a giraffe balloon. “Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, this building here,” she says distractedly, and points to the restaurant.

“No, the one with the red sign. So that way I’ll know where to come and get you.”

“It’s okay, Auntie Jemma. You won’t lose me.” And Orla gives her a smile that’s unlike anything else and she squeezes the hand of Jemma’s she’s holding.

“What a relief.” The side of Jemma’s mouth quirks up in a smile. “I would hate to lose you.” Then she checks her watch. “Come on, then. We better get moving if we want good seats at the talk.”

-x-

Orla’s as high as a kite after the talk with the giraffe keepers and, plied with leaflets and posters, she chatters incessantly about all of new facts as Jemma tries to steer her through the crowds.

“Their tongues are _blue!_ ” Orla cries, almost knocking into a family of six with matching backpacks.

“Very interesting,” Jemma remarks with difficulty, as she notices they’re headed straight for a tour group busy looking at their maps and not in front of them. As she successfully manages to steer past them, she suggests, “How about we have lunch now?”

“Oo can I get an ice-cream?”

“Perhaps afterwards.”

“ _Fine_ ,” she announces, sounding dramatically like her father, and lets Jemma steer her towards her picnic benches outside the restaurant.

Orla’s halfway through her portion of chips when, in the middle of chewing, she says contemplatively, “I thought mummy was taking me to the zoo.”

Immediately Jemma begins to panic, because this was her worst fear, really. She flounders for an answer, mouth opening and closing like a goldish that’s taken leave of its senses.

Orla, oblivious to this, continues on. “I’m glad I’m here with you instead, though.”

Jemma’s heart warms at this, she feels like the glow could be visible between her ribs if someone looked hard enough. There’s a tiny nugget of guilt, within her, but she tries not to focus on that. Through her smile she says, “I’m very glad I’m here with you.”

With a slurp of her juice, her niece says, ever so casually, “Can you be my new mummy?”

It’s unfortunate that only seconds before Jemma decided to take a drink of her juice but at least the moments she spends choking save her from having to respond to that. Orla, apparently, doesn’t take this instead of an answer and waits patiently for her aunt to recover, her blue eyes blinking in rhythm. A complete opposite to her mother.

Trying to phrase this in a way that doesn’t sound like rejection, Jemma tries, “You already have one, darling.”

“Yeah, but,” Orla shrugs, “I dunno. She’s not here.”

“That doesn’t mean she stops being your mummy,” Jemma tells her gently.

“I know, ‘cause of _biology._ ” And if she was the sort of child, there would be a _duh_ at the end of her statement. “but I think I’d like a new one anyway and I love you so…”

She looks up at Jemma expectantly, cannot understand the war of emotions going on in Jemma’s heart. There’s no denying the love between her and Orla, it as been evident ever since she had held the tiny, twenty-minute old baby in the hospital all those years ago. It’s always been just a readily accepted fact, that they love each other, that Jemma would lay down her life for her with no hesitation, but this moment is ever so special because while it’s just the truth, like the first law of thermodynamics, Jemma’s just never heard it _said_ before.

“I love you, too,” she chokes out, trying not to get emotional on what is meant to be a fun, happy trip to the Safari Park. “But it doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid. I can’t just _replace_ her.”

Annie doesn’t deserve such a wonderful child. She never has. And it feels so good in Jemma’s mind to finally admit it to herself. It’s not so simple, not like how Orla makes it out to be. Not as, in a not-so-tiny recess of her mind, Jemma wishes it could be.

In a wonderfully simple way that can only be attributed to a child, Orla just shrugs and takes another sip of her juice. “Okay then. Can we go see the Donkeys next?” Peering at one of her handouts, she gasps and looks up to Jemma with a wonder in her eyes. “Did you know that there are more than _forty million_ Donkeys in the whole entire world?”

-x-

“I thought we said our next talk was gonna be in a bar,” Daisy remarks, waving away a waiter with her left hand as she raises her eyebrow across a table at Jemma. “This isn’t a bar.”  
  
“No.” Jemma’s hands flutter in her lap like restless birds, eager to get on with the conversation. There isn’t even a hint of apology in her tone. “It’s not.”  
  
“Alright.” Daisy leans forward, elbows on the table. The waiter, who was about to come back, does a swift U turn. “What’s up?”  
  
“What do you mean? There’s nothing ‘up’? I just wanted to catch up, is all.”  
  
“You’re wound so tight you look like you’ll snap. And you picked a pretty swanky restaurant to eat at instead of Starbucks which tells me you’re feeling bad.”  
  
“I’m not feeling bad,” Jemma says quickly. “I just, well, you have a lot to do, you know. I thought if we went out I would at least make it worth your time.”  
  
Daisy’s eyebrow falls back into place, her knowing look replaced with something comparably softer. “Right, gotcha.” And then she signals to the waiter who may or may not roll his eyes before coming forward, the perfect smile on his lips and the false, five star customer service tone of his voice.  
  
“Good afternoon. Are you ready to order drinks just yet?”  
  
“Oh yeah,” Daisy swipes the menu she hasn’t looked at and stabs at random items. She orders obscenely priced cocktails and when the waiter leaves and Jemma raises her eyebrows, she only shrugs and says, “I have a feeling we’ll need alcohol for this.”  
  
So until the cocktails come they only talk of mundane things: the new doctoral research students that have overrun Jemma’s lab, Daisy’s students who are meant to be among the cleverest minds in the country but have to look up what colour plus blue equals green. Eventually, after the waiter deposits their glasses on the table with perhaps a touch too much vivacity, Daisy leans forward with a sparkle in her eye and says, “So. Dish.”  
  
And Jemma does. It all ends up coming out in torrents, as though she’s opened the gate and there’s nothing to do now except wait for everything to pass through. There are parts where she laughs and parts where tears sting her eyes and sting her throat, and there are parts where she feels herself smile without any conscious thought at all. About how she loves Orla, how she loves Fitz, how she’s fallen all over again but this time it’s more. About how she might have lost him, lost something, because she was so deathly afraid of ‘what if’.  
  
Throughout, Daisy only nods and “oh”s and “ah”s and at the end she reaches for Jemma’s hand and the first thing out of her mouth is “Thank God, I ordered first.” And, never letting go, she grabs her drink with her free hand and takes a long, loud, drink.  
  
“So?” Jemma hesitantly puts forward, anxious at Daisy’s lack of words. “What do you think?”  
  
“I think...” Daisy begins, letting go. Thoughts evidently pass through her face. “I think, that I’m gonna tell you something that I promised him I wouldn’t.”  
  
Jemma gives her a funny look, thrown off. This conversation she has tried to act out in her head so many times and nothing like that ever came out of Daisy’s mouth. “What do you mean?”  
  
It’s a heavy sigh, one that comes with momentarily closed eyes and a slight furrowing of the brow. “I mean,” Daisy says slowly, “that back in the day, before Annie, before you even thought of him that way, there was a time when our Leopold confessed to me that he was a wee bit fond of you.”  
  
The Scots word sounds so strange in Daisy’s accent but it isn’t the oddest part of her sentence.  
  
Jemma’s had this whole belief system, for years, and with a few words Daisy has managed to bring it crashing down and with the whole system in tatters in the pit of her brain, she can only utter a weak, “When?”  
  
Daisy sighs, like she feels bad for letting this out. “It was at a party, once. Before I properly knew you as well, you guys, and only really knew Jemma Simmons. He was drunk, like swaying on his feet, and he asked if I was your friend and I was all “sure” and then, I don’t know, it all just like came pouring out of him. How much he liked you, thought you were smart, thought you were too good for him. All that.”  
  
Shakily, Jemma reaches for her drink and takes a long sip. The coolness settles her head and grounds her enough to even comprehend Daisy’s words. There was a time, back in those good old days, when her best-friend loved her back. She turns her head to look out the window, wonders if the other patrons of the restaurant can see she is in danger of floating away.  
  
“And of course I freaked ‘cause I didn’t know him or you _that_ well and I just nodded and let him speak. Honestly he was so far gone I’m not even sure he remembered telling me in the morning.”  
  
The thought brings a smile to Jemma’s lips. For a Scotsman, he has always been terrible at handling his drink.  
  
“And then months later you were getting those feelings too and then, well, you know what happened after that.”  
  
The heartbreak. The embarrassment. The cathartic crying into a pillow which she hated but needed to do anyway.  
  
She looks at Daisy. “You never said anything,” she murmurs quietly, the memories holding her firmly to Earth once more.  
  
“I couldn’t,” Daisy says earnestly. “He made me promise I wouldn’t tell you and the guy was hammered and I barely knew him at the time. I wasn’t gonna get your hopes up only to destroy them.”  
  
Thoughts are racing through Jemma’s head at the speed of light. The ‘what if’ scenarios bounce around her skull. It hurts her head and she thinks she might be sick.  
  
“Thank you,” she says weakly, and the nervous look disappears from Daisy’s face.  
  
“For what?”  
  
“Just,” the smile she manages is small but genuine, “for everything.”  
  
“You should tell him,” Daisy tells her. “About it all. He’ll get it.”  
  
Maybe a few weeks ago Jemma’s answer would have been immediate. No, they couldn’t do that. No, she could never bring herself to tell him. No, because there are so many reasons why anything between them would be a bad idea.

But now… Now she hesitates ever so slightly to say, “I can’t.”

“Ugh, why _not?_ You gotta be brave, Jemma Simmons. You gotta take life and grab it by the horns and go out and get what you want!” The cutlery jumps as Daisy smacks a fist down on the table. “You’re perfect for each other. There’s everything to gain, nothing to lose. Seize the day and all that jazz.”

“I can’t, Daisy.”

Because her friend is wrong. There’s everything to lose. Orla and Fitz they aren’t just her friends, they’re her _family_ and having them in a way different to one she wants is better than never having them at all.

“Okay,” Daisy relents, clearly fed up of Jemma’s lack of seizing the day. “Okay, that’s cool. We’ll talk about something else. We can get some food for that.”

The food is good, the conversation about Daisy’s _‘freaking dumb graduate students’_ makes her laugh so hard that some of her drink comes out of her nose. And this is fine, she thinks, this is more than fine. This is her life and it’s beautiful. She doesn’t need to be complicating it, tainting it with her silly feelings. The life she has now is quite perfectly honestly fine.

-x-

Fitz’s house, not a whole lot of days later.

Orla is away. Sleeping over at a friends, and Fitz had invited her over. _“For dinner,”_ he told her over the phone, sounding cool. _“Just to catch up.”_

She never said anything about how there was nothing to catch up _on_ exactly, for they spend all of their time together and if anything huge in her life were going to happen she’d still tell him first. Even now. She never said anything because she didn’t really want to, because she wanted to go to dinner and laugh with her best-friend and see if everything could be okay again.

So Jemma turns up at five sharp, dressed casually but with more effort put in than otherwise would be considered. She goes to ring the doorbell then decides against it. She hasn’t rung in months, doing so would not strive for ‘normal.’ She lets herself in, instead, and heads straight for the kitchen.

“Hi,” she says timidly, standing at the door, suddenly too afraid to enter.

Fitz doesn’t hear her at first, too busy stirring things on the cooker and there’s a radio playing in the corner next to the toaster. It’s only when he looks up himself, blowing out a frustrated breath, that he notices her and smiles brightly.

“Jemma, hey! Sorry I uh, I thought that dinner would be ready by now.”

Fear forgotten, Jemma steps forward and peers into the pots bubbling away. “Do you need any help?”

“Aw, that would be great,” he sighs gratefully. “Do you want an apron or something to cover up your outfit? The sauce can be a bit, um, volatile.” And he gestures to his own shirt splattered with red blotches. “And you look, um, you look nice and it, well, it would be a shame to cover you – I mean your top! – in sauce.”

She pretends not to notice how his cheeks have turned as red as the sauce in the pot and instead laughs and gently suggests, “Why don’t we just turn the temperature down a bit?” And then, biting her lip and looking up at him through her lashes, “and thank you.”

Ducking his head away, he reaches for the wooden spoon sitting innocently on the worktop and holds it out to her. “It’s meant to be Bolognese but I’m hopeless.”

“Why on earth would you decide to cook something you know you’re hopeless at?” She rolls her eyes but takes the spoon and gets to work.

For the next half an hour they cook together, throwing out Fitz’s solo attempt completely and starting anew. It’s the way it was, way back in the beginning, when they were students in the same Halls of Residence and had to share a kitchen.

“Do you remember?” Jemma asks, almost doubled over by how hard she is laughing. “That time where you tried to cook Spaghetti Bolognese in the kitchen and it went e _verywhere_.”

“Yeah,” he grumbles but his mouth quirks up at the sides. “Still don’t understand how something can stick to the bottom of a pot _and_ end up on the ceiling at the same time.”

“It was so funny,” Jemma wheezes, laughter now hurting her ribs. “But you promised you would never make it again.”

“It’s your favourite, though,” he says simply. Jemma feels the heat of his gaze on her but there’s no nervous beating of her heart, no funny feeling in her stomach. Instead she feels pleasantly warm.

Dinner carries on and it’s much in the same fashion. The warm feeling only spreads throughout her body as Jemma laughs and smiles while twirling past around her fork. She basks in it. Sitting across from Fitz at his kitchen table, she feels as though she is glowing. This is home.

Eventually when dinner is finished, and conversation diminished to a level insufficient for continuing, Jemma cocks her head and says, ever so softly, “I think it’s time to go.”

He smiles at her but his eyes flick downwards and something like disappointment passes through them. “Yeah, maybe it is.”

She stands up to leave, pushing in her chair gently so the noise of it on the floor doesn’t interrupt the mood. “I had such a nice time tonight, Fitz.” She smiles. “It was truly lovely.”

“Anytime.” His voice equally as soft. There are stars in his eyes. _Did I do that to him? Do I make him this happy?_

He stands up, walks with her to the front door. She’s hesitating to leave, because this feels very date-like and people do different things at the end of first dates than they do at dinners with friends. Do they hug? Do they kiss on the cheek? Does she just see ‘see you later’ and bolt? Jemma cannot seem to remember what they have always done before.

In the end she settles for a cheek kiss that she swears he stops breathing beneath. “Bye, Fitz. I’ll see you soon,” she promises and heads to leave.

“It was you,” he blurts suddenly and she turns around, confused.  
  
“What was me?”  
  
He wrings his hands, twisting and turning over each other. “The ring.” She still has no idea what he’s on about and feels her eyebrows knit together. He explains. “The one we were talking about months ago, the one mum never thought was for Annie...” He bites his lip, breathes deeply, desperately. “It was for you.”  
  
“Really?” Softly, a little breathlessly. Her heart hammers against her chest in hope she knows is wrong but feels so _right._  
  
He steps closer to her, but still far away enough that she could leave if she choses to, could run. She knows he is giving her this choice, that if she leaves right now then he will pretend the words haven’t been spoken, that he will go back to the new normal they have created. It’s unnecessary, for she knows that she could never leave, could never want to.  
  
“Yeah, uh, mum always said that,” he licks his lips, smiles shyly as looks down to the ground and back up. Oh God his eyes are so blue she wants to drown in them. “That she always thought the ring was for you.”  
  
“Fitz...” she begins, but isn’t sure how to end. Logically, rationally, this isn’t right. It’s dangerous. There’s too much at stake. His fiancée has left him and he’s reeling with the  devastation and he’s looking to her to fill some gap, her too-rational, too-logical brain tells her. If this doesn’t work out, the emotional fallout would be so devastating that she’s not sure they could ever recover from it.  
  
And there is Orla to think of. There is a child. This is not a victimless crime. They could hurt her more than they could ever hurt themselves.  
  
But, her heart reasons with her for what it wants, they are adults. And they are best-friends. First and foremost, they have always been friends and they are mature enough to overcome whatever happened.  
  
And what if it did work? What if everything turned out the way it seems was prophesied by everyone but themselves? What if she was able to join their family, permanently, and have what she never thought she’d want?

 _Oh, shut up_ she tells her brain and feels her heart thump wildly in victory.  
  
“Look, you don’t have to say anything, Jemma.” Fitz shakes his head, seeing the war in hers. “It’s - I just thought it was important that you knew, ‘cause not telling you just... it’s fine, honestly.”  
  
“I didn’t say anything,” she says quietly, closing the distance between them.  
  
“You didn’t have to. Got that look all over your face.”  
  
“I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t think about it at all, Fitz.”  
  
“No, I know. Wouldn’t want you any other way.”  
  
It’s things like that. Little things he says that make her heart stop for a second and go into overdrive. That make her head swirl with ‘what does he mean?’. But she supposes now she knows. And she rather likes the answer.  
  
“I never wanted it to be like this,” she murmurs.  
  
His eyes widen in confusion, searching hers for an answer. “What?”  
  
“Just, this... I never wanted this. I never wanted her to leave you.”  
  
For this is what she has been afraid of most of all, if they did happen. Because all these years she really did move on. She really was happy for him, wanted his marriage to work, his daughter to be happy. She wanted him to have what he had always craved for so long, and as long as he did then she didn’t care if she wasn’t the one who could give it to him.  
  
But it’s one thing for her to know that, an entirely different thing for Fitz to know it. He can’t think she’s just been sitting here, biding her time until the inevitable happened. He can’t think she wanted it like this, because if he did it would break her heart and prove that maybe he never knew her at all.  
  
“I know that, Jemma.” His smile is knowing and feels like home.  
  
“You do?”  
  
He chuckles. “Of course.” Finally, finally, he touches her, holds her arms, and it burns as pleasantly as she expected it would. “I thought you didn’t… think of me that way and so I moved on but it was never right, you know?”  
  
A whisper is all she can manage, for the breath has seemingly escaped her lungs. “I know.”  
  
“But I’m glad it happened the way it did,” he tells her, seriously. “Because I have Orla, and I don’t even want to imagine a life without her in it.”  
  
“No,” and Jemma thinks of the girl with the unruly curls and impossible blue eyes and the grin that could stretch on for miles. “I would never want to know that life.”  
  
“Exactly. But what’s happened has happened and we’re here now and we don’t need to rush anything and there’s stuff to think about I know-”  
  
“Fitz,” she cuts him off, surprised by the lowness of her voice and how very palpable her need is. “Maybe we should not think and-”  
  
“Just do,” he finishes for her, and their lips meet as soon as the last syllable is out of his mouth. Jemma thinks maybe he can taste it on his tongue.  
  
Contrary to what everyone thinks, she has never kissed Fitz before. But it’s exactly how she thought it would be. It’s as though they move together in the way they always have; that kind of synchronicity that she’s only ever had with him.  
  
When they break apart they don’t. Their foreheads still touch. Her heartbeat is calm, lulled, as if finally at peace.  
  
Fitz grins at her nervously, but as though he has everything he’s ever wanted and she imagines the expression simply mirrors her own.  
  
“Jemma Simmons,” he whispers, taking her hands in his. “I would really like for you to be in my life forever.”  
  
“It would be my pleasure.” A smile threatens to split her face in two. “As though I would be anywhere else.”  
  
Because she would always be with him to the end. No matter what.  
  
He smiles at her adoringly, and it’s funny how she never really could see what that word meant to her until now. “But together.”  
  
Together. They’ve been with each other all these years, but never as they are now. It’s the point of no return. The event horizon. Once going over there’s no going back.  
  
She runs and jumps.  
  
“Of course,” she tells him, feeling them move into the infinite. “Together.”

 


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... here it is. We have finally arrived. It's been written for a day and half but I put off posting it because I was kind of sad that this has come to an end. I mean I'm totally happy, don't get me wrong, I love happy endings! But this is the longest continuous work I've ever written in the AoS fandom and I just had fun and I think I'll miss it. 
> 
> However, that being said, there is a very strong chance I'll return to this universe because there is So Many things I could write like oh my goodness I have so many ideas! So you never know!
> 
> This is the epilogue. It's short. It's sweet. it makes me happy and satisfied and I hope you enjoy it, too! Thank you to everybody who has read, left kudos, left comments, bookmarked, reblogged, liked on tumblr. You guys are all completely amazing and thank you for the support. You're all amazing beans!

“Mummy!” Orla calls from the top of the stairs. “Do you know where my new pencil case is?”

Jemma rolls her eyes from where stands at their kitchen table, cutting up bananas to put in Orla’s cornflakes. “Try on the hall table,” she calls back, knowing she should have anticipated the question. Orla becomes more and more her father’s daughter every single day, right down to the last minute organisation that leaves Jemma confident in the fact that opposites really do attract.

There’s the _thump thump_ and she imagines Orla careening down the stairs, new school cardigan probably slipped down off her shoulders and the Velcro of one shoe come unstuck. There’s still over an hour before they even need to leave for Orla’s first day of the new school year and there’s a very high chance she already looks like she needs it to be over.

Fitz walks into the kitchen, hair stuck at odd angles, rubbing his eyes. He stops and looks at her, the way he does every morning, as if she’s some scientific wonder that he’s discovering for the first time every time.

“Morning,” he says through a smile, coming over to kiss her. Never will she be used to this and never does she want to be.

“Morning,” she murmurs back, giggling like a teenager as she does so, leaning in for another kiss because she can’t help herself.

It has the potential to keep going, but fortunately Orla skids into the kitchen at that moment brandishing her starry blue pencil case in her hand.

“I found it!” She announces, showing her parents. Then she frowns. “But now I need to put pencils in it.”

“They’re on the living room table,” Jemma says in a sing-son voice, sliding the banana from the chopping board into a bowl of cornflakes, arranging them with the tip of her knife. “I thought I told you to have this all ready last night.”

Orla gives her a cheeky grin, “I forgot?” She offers, shrugging one shoulder.

“More like you were too busy building Lego with your father.” And Jemma throws a sideways glance at Fitz who hums at the ceiling. “But never mind that, now. You can pack your things after your breakfast.”

“Banana?” Orla asks, sitting in her seat at the table but bouncing up and down with excitement. _If only Fitz was this excited about fruit,_ Jemma thinks wryly, enjoying the fact that she can be worried about things like this now.

“Banana.” Jemma slides the bowl over and watches as Orla’s face lights up as she sees the smiley face in the middle.

“How come I don’t get smiley faces in my breakfast?” Fitz pouts.

“You have to actually _eat_ breakfast for that to happen.” But then she slides Fitz a plate of toast that has jam on it in the shape of a love heart and he smiles at her in such a way that causes her heart to stop for a moment.

This. This is it. If she has this for the rest of her life then she will consider herself a lucky woman. She will never be over her fortune, never be over the way Orla clings to her after she’s been at school all day or the way Fitz looks when he’s brushing his teeth and singing horribly all at the same time. It’s beautiful for her, something she never thought she could say about this kind of domesticity. Every time she looks at her family she knows that she is home.

“You alright?” Fitz asks, sidling close and wrapping an arm around her waist. Jemma allows her head to fall on his shoulder, breathes him in deeply.

“Just thinking.” About a million things and all of them happy, all of them she wants. About how Orla is chewing with her mouth open and needs a lesson in table manners, about how all three of them are due for dentist appointments, about how her new boss at the lab has been hinting about an overdue promotion, about how tonight she might treat them all to ice-cream.

“Good I hope,” Fitz whispers in her ear, his breath warm. For a second she is lost but just as quickly she is found.

“Oh, yes,” she says, quite confidently, a smile on her face. “Definitely all good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLESYA!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day!


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